Sunday, January 11, 2009

A day of baking and treats...

I have been a busy baker today. Lots of goodies coming out of the kitchen today. It started with some Chocolate covered English Toffee. (and no J that isn't what I am sending you, though I could!) I have been wanting to make some other candies, but thought about trying my hand at this and see if the super cheap candy thermometer actually works before making some others that have more rich ingredients. I decided to make it with some fleur de sel in the toffee and sprinkled on the chocolate on top too. All I can say is YUM. It looks great and you can really taste the buttery goodness and the salty sea salt. I used Paula Deen's recipe for English Toffee and just omitted the nuts.

Then I decided to make a recipe that I had seen awhile back and thought would be fun for the boys. One of the fantastic blogs I check out daily, The Way the Cookie Crumbles, posted a recipe for Pigs in a Blanket. I thought the boys would love them. And surprisingly enough Jakob loved it, he ate it with strawberry jam, but he ate it! I had to make the dough twice - the first time I forgot to add the sugar and the poor yeast didn't have anything to eat and refused to rise!

For dinner I made a recipe that I have been wanting to make ever since I saw it a couple of weeks ago (or so). CHIPOTLE LIME GLAZED SHRIMP! Ok - not baking, but man were they ever freaking yummy!! I found it while perusing my Google Reader and all the blogs I follow. Ezra Pound Cake shared this recipe from Cook's Illustrated. I served it with lime maple sweet potatoes and cornbread. No greens - the green beans I had in the fridge went south on me. Oh well - double tomorrow! I think we will be working this into the "rotation" for sure - love it!!

And last but not least, Lemon Blueberry Muffins. I have another playgroup with the new meetup group in the morning. A coffee meetup while the kiddos play. I thought I would bring something yummy with me (as I usually do), so I made a Dorie recipe but substituted lemon for orange, and added some sweetened cream cheese in the middle before baking them. So when you bite into them there is a yummy cheesecakey center.

I am sorry I am not including recipes in this post - but follow the links and you can get them while checking out some new sites.

omg!!! can i come live in your house??????????lol the muffins were delish! and it looked like Jakob had a really good time! and just because it says bobbie and i havent figured out how to change it yet maybe i should go work on that????